Page 24 of Evil Deeds

“Why?” I ask. “Why doyoueven like me?”

“Because I know you,” she says, sinking down beside me. “I get it. You’re pissed. But the boy I fell in love with, who I promised my virginity to, is still in there. He has to be. I have to believe that.”

I open my mouth to tell her he’s not, to crush her naïve dreams and make her as hopeless as me, but something stops me. It’s not because I want to spare her the pain or because I don’t want to take that fantasy away from her. It’s because some naïve part of me, the one that believed it would all be okay once I got here and made her pay for her crimes, likes that she believes that. I want her to see me that way for just a little longer before I reveal the truth. That the boy who she fell in love with has vanished as completely as the girl who fell in love with him.

“Okay,” I say, standing from the bed. “I’ll go to your lame-ass party. That’s my duty as your boyfriend, I guess. When we get back, you can do your duty as my girlfriend again.”

“I’m still sore,” she protests.

“Good,” I say. “Then you’ll know how painful it is for me to hang out with all your stupid friends.”

*

The party sucks ass. It’s just a bunch of rich kids showing off and pretending to be powerful, even though their daddies paid for everything here. If their families cut them off, they’d be nothing, just like me. Or like I was until I set my mother up with Mr. Montgomery. At least I’m smart enough to recognize that it’s all an illusion, the mirage money casts over our lives. I know all too well what happens when the mirage dissipates, when the curtain is pulled back. Without money, we’reallnothing.

An hour in, I can’t fake it anymore. These people pretend to be my friends, not just because I’m with Gloria, but because I’m rich now too. But if Mr. Montgomery figures out that my mother can’t function without an expensive cocktail of prescription pills and kicks us to the curb, we’ll go right back to being nothing. All these assholes trying to shove drinks into my hand and take selfies with me will pretend we don’t exist. After all, keeping us around would remind them that it could happen to anyone, that everything in life is so fucking fragile it’s hardly worth living.

I escape through the back door and make my way around the corner of the wrap-around porch. Suddenly, I find myself alone, as if the party switch was flipped off when I stepped into the shadows. This side of the house faces into a section of trees, the only light spilling from a window at the far end. I hate the crowd, and I let out a sigh of relief to leave it behind for a while. I make my way to a detached porch swing, figuring I’ll hide out here until Gloria answers my text.

I don’t see the figure sitting in the shadows until I’m about to sit down. My heart gives a start, then thrums in my chest like a guitar. He’s still as a statue on the far end of the swing, a beer in one hand, eyes fixed on the dark woods.

“I didn’t know you were coming to this,” I say, sinking onto the other end of the cushioned seat.

He turns to me, squinting to make out my features in the dark.

“Rylan,” I remind him. “Surprised?”

“Oh,” he says, his voice a slow-mo slur of confusion that’s all too familiar after watching my mother disappear over the past few years, replaced with a distracted, distant version of her former self. “Yeah, man. My sister told me you moved here. How’d that happen?”

“Long story.”

I haven’t seen Dawson since moving to Arkansas. He’s been at college in another state. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see the look on his face when he found out I was back, but I’m also pleased that Gloria told him about me.

“Want a beer?” he asks, holding up the one in his hand.

I shake my head. “I don’t drink.”

“What do you mean, you don’t drink?” he asks. “Are you, like, a Jehovah’s Witness now?”

“Sure,” I say because it’s easier than explaining that after watching my mother spiral into a bottle and having a social worker tell me that addictions run in families, the thought of doing something that could put me on the same path freaks me out.

“I always knew you were a good guy,” Dawson slurs. “You always treated my sister right.”

“Yeah,” I say, guilt chewing me up inside.

I used to treat his sister right.

“Not like the guys here,” Dawson says. “The Dolces, man. They’re evil. Don’t tell them I said that. They’d fucking kill me, even though I don’t live here anymore. No, they’d probably kill my sisters. But you won’t say anything, will you? You’re a good guy. We gotta stick together, so that’s just between us. Man to Savannah man.”

He chuckles quietly, a hiccup coming with it.

The anger pulsing in my chest stills as it strikes me that he’s vulnerable right now, too drunk to filter himself. He thinks we’re friends, that I’m still on their side, like I was back home. He doesn’t know things have changed. He doesn’t know what I’ve been doing to his sister for the past few weeks.

“Yeah,” I say, nervously flipping my lip rings with my tongue as my pulse picks up speed. “How long have I known you? We’re practically brothers. Of course I won’t say anything.”

“I knew you were a good guy,” he slurs, reaching over and clapping me on the shoulder. “Unlike fucking Royal.”

He takes a swig of his beer and glowers at the woods.

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